(Cross-posted from the official Making All Voices Count Blog)
The Global Innovation Competition called for new, ‘out-of-the-box’ ideas to enhance government transparency and accountability in Making All Voices Count’s 12 programme countries.

A few weeks back I had the privilege of serving as one of 4 judges for the business plan competition that is the culmination of Assistant Professor Tapan Parikh's graduate course, "ICT for Social Enterprise", at UC Berkeley's School of Information Sciences.

Welcome to the ICTworks bi-weekly ICT4D Retrospective, where we condense the last two weeks of news into a succinct list of links for your perusal. If you want your news to be featured, email them to ritse [at] ritseonline [dot] com. To get these links faster, follow me on Twitter: @RitseOnline

Drop by Drop Gets the Pump: A new case-study from MobileActive highlights a mobile layaway service focused on helping small-scale famers purchase irrigation pumps for their farms. Definitely a case of teaching farmers how to "fish"!

At the 14th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of African Union, Bingu wa Mutharika, the African Union (AU) chairperson, has called upon member countries to take information and communication technologies seriously.

I could not agree more. I salute African Union's call to truly embrace ICT as a facilitator of development and progress across all African nations. I also call on the African Union to follow up its declaration with the following two changes across its membership:1. Open and Competitive ICT Markets

One of the most exciting things about my work is the incredibly talented people I get to meet. Up-and-coming entrepreneurs with a never-say-die, get-up-and-go attitude. Iâ€™m continually inspired and more than happy to offer my help in any way I can, particularly to those looking to implement FrontlineSMS one way or another in their work. Today, two of these projects have made it through to the next round of a major competition and are looking for your help. I hope you feel equally inspired to show your support â€“ itâ€™s only a few mouse clicks away and costs little.Whatâ€™s it all about?